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The free included DLC for "stacking" is awesome, extended gameplay in a very good way.
I really enjoyed some of the DLC for borderlands and fallout 3.
I think a mini review for DLC is useful, when it has a lot of new content.

Even if you despise the very concept of DLC, surely you'd want to see it reviewed? At least in theory, the reviews can shine light on whether the product is value for money, and therefore less people are likely to buy rip-off or shoddy DLC.

The free included DLC for "stacking" is awesome, extended gameplay in a very good way.
I really enjoyed some of the DLC for borderlands and fallout 3.
I think a mini review for DLC is useful, when it has a lot of new content.

I do believe the free DLC for stacking was only free on PC since it came out a year after consoles.

I generally don't like content DLC and wouldn't mind if most of it went away. It almost always seems overpriced and preys on feelings like "you haven't got the full experience" or "you don't know the whole story" which seems a little bit unpleasant. I've only ever bought Duels of the Planeswalkers DLC, because that is good value if you play the game a lot, and one Dragon Age DLC, because I know it's the only chance to play anything like Origins. I'll probably get the Dredmor DLC at some point because it sounds like it is worth the money, and the original game was ludicrously cheap anyway.

DLC should definitely be reviewed, preferably by the players. We need to know which are the genuine efforts and which are the cash-grabs which should have been in the full game. Unfortunately there are a LOT of the latter.

DLC should be covered the same as anything else: to the extent that the publication believes it is significant enough to write about in accordance with the aims of the publication and time/space considerations.

I find the assertion that indie developers are somehow good, honest, immune to accusations of greed, while established developers are inherently greedy mega-corps, really annoying.
Both are in it for the same reason: They like making games and they want to make money. Yes, sometimes a publisher will step in and ruin it for everyone, but not always. Valve is both dev and publisher and they don't shunt game content into day-one paid-for DLC.

Oh and on an entirely unrelated note, the Union Flag in your avatar Drake Sigar looks upside down. The thick part of the white diagonal in the top left should be above the red diagonal.

Question is referred to Heister, not to you. No offense, but I really want Heister to answer this question, because I have asked him multiple times and he does not appear to know the answer or something, as he has not replied.

I find the assertion that indie developers are somehow good, honest, immune to accusations of greed, while established developers are inherently greedy mega-corps, really annoying.

I think the implication is that indie developers should be given more leeway when it comes to DLC because the original product was likely sold for peanuts -- such that in the event that the game is successful and loved by its fans, the opportunity to pay for relatively trivial DLC can be seen as a way of rewarding the developer more commensurately for the enjoyment derived frmo their work. I'm thinking specifically of Magicka here.

Also, (most) indie devs don't have the financial resources to pump a game full of content and risk having it fail. Initial 'trial balloons' consisting of the basic game systems and the minimal amount of content necessary to make sense of them are far more sensible and acceptable in this context. Of course it would probably be acceptable for mainstream developers to do it too, if they ever thought to do it and price it as such.

I find the assertion that indie developers are somehow good, honest, immune to accusations of greed, while established developers are inherently greedy mega-corps, really annoying.

I do too, but to be fair, indie devs rely a lot more on the goodwill of the players to get their sales. People are a LOT more forgiving of indies than big name devs but in saying that it's right to expect more when they've got the resources to deliver.

That said I totally agree that people seem to ignore that indies are out to make money. The same argument applies to Valve. If they didn't want to make money, they wouldn't be selling their games.

That said I totally agree that people seem to ignore that indies are out to make money.

The difference is that indies (and even smaller/independent mainstream developers like Valve) are able to value things other than their own bottom line. An individual can feel morally obliged to fix the bugs in his game that've been noticed by others, Ubisoft cannot.

Science has even revealed to us almost the exact point at which organisations turn from an association of human beings with human motives into a psychopath concerned only for its own institutional wellbeing: roughly 150 people.

I think the implication is that indie developers should be given more leeway when it comes to DLC because the original product was likely sold for peanuts -- such that in the event that the game is successful and loved by its fans, the opportunity to pay for relatively trivial DLC can be seen as a way of rewarding the developer more commensurately for the enjoyment derived frmo their work. I'm thinking specifically of Magicka here.

Also, (most) indie devs don't have the financial resources to pump a game full of content and risk having it fail. Initial 'trial balloons' consisting of the basic game systems and the minimal amount of content necessary to make sense of them are far more sensible and acceptable in this context. Of course it would probably be acceptable for mainstream developers to do it too, if they ever thought to do it and price it as such.

Indie games also cost a fraction of what it costs to make big budget games...

The difference is that indies (and even smaller/independent mainstream developers like Valve) are able to value things other than their own bottom line. An individual can feel morally obliged to fix the bugs in his game that've been noticed by others, Ubisoft cannot.

But you've included Valve there, when Valve are pretty big these days particularly with Steam. Ubisoft might be piss-poor when it comes to particular issues but plenty of other big devs manage to push patches to fix issues. An individual can feel morally obligated to fix bugs, or they might just go "Oh well, stiff shit, I've decided it's a feature instead."

People are FAR less forgiving of major devs when it comes to bugs, while any indie game which is broken on release is praised for what it might do right (if it worked) with a minor caution that it's still buggy but will get better.

Originally Posted by Rii

Science has even revealed to us almost the exact point at which organisations turn from an association of human beings with human motives into a psychopath concerned only for its own institutional wellbeing: roughly 150 people.

But you've included Valve there, when Valve are pretty big these days particularly with Steam. Ubisoft might be piss-poor when it comes to particular issues but plenty of other big devs manage to push patches to fix issues. An individual can feel morally obligated to fix bugs, or they might just go "Oh well, stiff shit, I've decided it's a feature instead."

People are FAR less forgiving of major devs when it comes to bugs, while any indie game which is broken on release is praised for what it might do right (if it worked) with a minor caution that it's still buggy but will get better.

Authoritative citation needed.

Forbes estimates valves enterprise value at about 3 billion, EA is about 3.9B, and Activision Blizzard is 10.8B, and Zynga is 4.3B.

So that puts Valve up there as one of the biggest game companies on the planet.

Indie games also cost a fraction of what it costs to make big budget games...

Point moot?

It doesn't really matter to me how much something cost to make, just the price and the quality and the potential. The more value-for-money I've got from a product, the less bothered I'm going to be about whether some DLC is going to be value-for-money, since I'm already ahead anyway---even if it turns out to be bad value-for-money all I am going to think is "oh well, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose".

It doesn't really matter to me how much something cost to make, just the price and the quality and the potential. The more value-for-money I've got from a product, the less bothered I'm going to be about whether some DLC is going to be value-for-money, since I'm already ahead anyway---even if it turns out to be bad value-for-money all I am going to think is "oh well, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose".

DLC should definitely be reviewed, preferably by the players. We need to know which are the genuine efforts and which are the cash-grabs which should have been in the full game.

Is that really what we need to know? Surely what we need to know is if it's any good and whether it's worth the money or not? I'd take a awesome cynical cash-grab that which should have been in the original game over a genuine effort that sucked any day of the week.